House and Wills

[toni74]

Hello

Hoping for some help with the following:

Hus and I bought our house jointly 7+ years ago and took out a life insurance policy on it (Joint Ownership I assume). When we bought it we made no adjustments to the ownership, other than 50/50...

Ok so in the event of a death I understand that the house will pass to the other, but what I want to know is if my husband dies how do I ensure that there are no claims from his older children for the house (immediately or in the future), my hus contention is that this house and any proceeds from it, go to our children.

Someone might look at this and go its obvious its your house and goes to who you want it to, but I'm just double checking as were going through our wills and insurance polices.

I hope this is clear...

Ty

A few questions first:

1. How old are your husband's other children ?
2. Are they financially dependent on him in any way, eg is he paying maintenance or uni costs ?
3. What provision has he made for them in his will ?

If you and your DH own your house jointly as joint tenants then it automatically passes to the other by survivorship regardless of what the will says. However, if your DH's children are still financially dependent on him then they could make a claim for reasonable provision against his estate ( if he hasn't already made such provision).

I can probably give you a better answer when I have a bit more info.

Hi, in my experience the law favours the spouse regardless. My father died last year. He was separated from my stepmother. They sold their house before he died and split the proceeds 50/50. In his will he left his estate to biological children and other relatives. His estate is just his half of the house. All of the children and stepchildren are financially independent. He never divorced my stepmother. She is taking us to court over the will and apparently has a good chance as they didn't divorce. So in our case what's written in the will doesn't mean anything. So in your situation I am a child from the first marriage but the law puts my stepmother before me. I don't think you need to worry!

Hello

Youngest sc is 18 shortly, but likely to attend further education for a further year (hus pays maintenance privately). Older sc are 22+ and lead independent lives (with no financial assistance from hus)

Provision for older children has been made under a separate policy.

Ours (2) are under 5...

We will be writing the trust policy to reflect our wishes hus - wife/wife to hus and then to our 2.

Hope this helps ty

I'd recommend that he at least puts in place a decreasing life term (possibly only a year) to cover the period of time that your husband is liable to pay child maintenance, and that you consider making new wills giving one another a life interest in the house (you will need to sever the joint tenancy to do this but that's straightforward).

Then, when one of you dies, that person's share is held on trust for the children in whatever shares you wish. The surviving spouse can remain living in the property (or a future property if they wish to downsize), until their death or remarriage.

The point of writing this type of trust is to avoid the possiblility of (in this case you, as stepparent) from receiving your husband's share of the house and then making a new will cutting out the stepchildren. It is also useful for older people who wish to mitigate the costs of care home fees for the surviving spouse.

I've written an article on how this type of trust works on my website, let me know if you'd like a link.

Can you share the link please and ty

PM ing you now (don't want to be accused of advertising!)